Lecturer Salary Inequality in Indonesia: A Distributive Justice Perspective from Southeast Asia

Lecturer salary inequality remains a persistent challenge in Indonesian higher education and has attracted increasing attention due to its implications for academic welfare, educational quality, and institutional sustainability. While previous studies have examined lecturer welfare, labor protection, and wage standards, limited research has integrated distributive justice theory, higher education governance, and comparative regional perspectives to explain the structural roots of remuneration disparities. This study aims to analyze lecturer salary inequality in Indonesia from a distributive justice perspective and identify the legal and institutional factors contributing to wage disparities. Employing a normative legal research method with a socio-legal analytical approach, the study examines statutory regulations, policy documents, and relevant academic literature through qualitative content analysis. The findings reveal that lecturer salary inequality is structurally shaped by fragmented regulatory frameworks, differences in employment status, uneven institutional funding capacities, and weak coordination between labor law and higher education governance. Comparative evidence further indicates that lecturer remuneration in Indonesia remains relatively lower than in several Southeast Asian countries, reflecting broader disparities in academic labor protection and educational financing. The novelty of this study lies in its integration of distributive justice theory, labor law analysis, and higher education governance perspectives to explain salary inequality as a structural governance issue rather than merely an economic problem. However, this study is limited by its reliance on normative legal analysis and secondary data without extensive empirical or cross-country quantitative evidence. The findings contribute to ongoing discussions on legal harmonization, equitable remuneration, and higher education governance reform.